WORKING WITH GROUPS: ASSESSMENT
A fundamental ingredient of group work, of any type of project, is collaboration.But as the French will tell you, collaboration is a Janus-faced word.On the positive side, collaboration implies constructive interdependence built upon trust and shared goals.The negative side of collaboration is marked by the appearance of cooperation while undermining the effectiveness of the group to achieve self-promotion or to escape perceived risks.A proven way to maximize the positive and neutralize the negative in group work is by being mindful of our assessment strategies.
From the time that they are knee-high to a bullfrog, students are taught to compete with each other academically as individuals for individual grades.That mindset can prove to be disadvantageous to group work, especially if the rewards system is still geared towards rewarding individual performance rather than team performance, as is traditionally doneDepending upon how we are prepared to assess group work, we may already have a built-in overriding factor that undermines any shared activity.Hence, here is the first rule for group success. RULE 1:Align your rewards system (i.e., grades, recognition) with the desired outcome of a team-driven project, and distinguish this rewards structure from any individual performance driven rewards system.
The effectiveness of your assessment strategy will depend upon the context that you create for this group work.Since we are teaching entirely online, we will use electronic tools to create this context.We now have access to blogs and wikis through our Learning Objects, Inc. Building Block.These tools will go far in expanding what we can do technologically.These are in addition to the collaborative suite of tools that are already familiar to you in Bb.But we must also provide guidance to the students as they prepare to do group work. RULE 2:Be clear about what you are assessing, and provide models as guideposts for students.
The following are models of documents that you can prepare to assist your students in working in collaborative groups:
Getting started:You can use the Teams feature of Learning Objects to realize this objective.
Group Leadership:To help in developing leadership, you can rotate leadership in the group, or ask that the group rotate leadership.In any event, you may want to encourage the use of Learning Objects’ reflective journal tool as a space for personal reflection on leadership.
Roles That Contribute to the Work:This fact sheet can be a good primer for students so that they can have a basis and a common language for evaluating their own and each other’s work and contributions to the group.
Since writing is such an integral component of the Online BA, I found these suggestions to be helpful.
Rule 3:Provide the rubric for the group assessment ahead of time so that students have a yardstick against which they can measure their performance.
Once the group work is complete, it will need to be assessed.Learning Objects, Inc. has built-in assessment features for group work, so there is a big advantage in using their Building Block.In addition, you may find these assessment models helpful:
A fundamental ingredient of group work, of any type of project, is collaboration. But as the French will tell you, collaboration is a Janus-faced word. On the positive side, collaboration implies constructive interdependence built upon trust and shared goals. The negative side of collaboration is marked by the appearance of cooperation while undermining the effectiveness of the group to achieve self-promotion or to escape perceived risks. A proven way to maximize the positive and neutralize the negative in group work is by being mindful of our assessment strategies.
From the time that they are knee-high to a bullfrog, students are taught to compete with each other academically as individuals for individual grades. That mindset can prove to be disadvantageous to group work, especially if the rewards system is still geared towards rewarding individual performance rather than team performance, as is traditionally done Depending upon how we are prepared to assess group work, we may already have a built-in overriding factor that undermines any shared activity. Hence, here is the first rule for group success.
RULE 1: Align your rewards system (i.e., grades, recognition) with the desired outcome of a team-driven project, and distinguish this rewards structure from any individual performance driven rewards system.
The effectiveness of your assessment strategy will depend upon the context that you create for this group work. Since we are teaching entirely online, we will use electronic tools to create this context. We now have access to blogs and wikis through our Learning Objects, Inc. Building Block. These tools will go far in expanding what we can do technologically. These are in addition to the collaborative suite of tools that are already familiar to you in Bb. But we must also provide guidance to the students as they prepare to do group work.
RULE 2: Be clear about what you are assessing, and provide models as guideposts for students.
The following are models of documents that you can prepare to assist your students in working in collaborative groups:
- Getting started: You can use the Teams feature of Learning Objects to realize this objective.
- Including Everyone and Their Ideas: Using a Wiki for this is a great idea.
- Group Leadership: To help in developing leadership, you can rotate leadership in the group, or ask that the group rotate leadership. In any event, you may want to encourage the use of Learning Objects’ reflective journal tool as a space for personal reflection on leadership.
- Roles That Contribute to the Work: This fact sheet can be a good primer for students so that they can have a basis and a common language for evaluating their own and each other’s work and contributions to the group.
- Net-Meeting Recording Log: keeping things on track
- Since writing is such an integral component of the Online BA, I found these suggestions to be helpful.
Rule 3: Provide the rubric for the group assessment ahead of time so that students have a yardstick against which they can measure their performance.Once the group work is complete, it will need to be assessed. Learning Objects, Inc. has built-in assessment features for group work, so there is a big advantage in using their Building Block. In addition, you may find these assessment models helpful:
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